Remotely-controlled aircraft are becoming increasingly more popular and sophisticated. While larger remotely-controlled aircraft such as military and civilian drones have been in use for only the last two decades, smaller remotely-controlled flying craft built and flown by hobbyists have been around for much longer. Generally, remotely-controlled aircraft are either fixed wing, like a plane, or hovering, like a helicopter or quadcopter.
Game play among remote control objects traditionally involved racing or driving games for remote control model cars or boats. The game players each have a remote controller that communicates with a remote control model craft using relatively simple control commands (e.g., turn left/right, go faster/slower, go forward/backward). Control of the craft during game play was originally based on the player's visual observation of the craft in a two-dimensional game space (e.g., a surface or area such as a track, a terrain, a pond, or a pool). The addition of a camera and display screen augmented the remote control game play to provide a virtual game play option. Examples of these two-dimensional remote control game play systems that included virtual game play capabilities include U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,293,798, 6,752,720, 7,704,119, and 8,216,036, and U.S. Pub. Nos. 2006/0223637 and 2009/0005167. An example of a two-dimensional remote control game play systems with video displays on each remote controller for controlling tanks that fired infrared or laser offensive signals from tanks that can be tracked by pressure sensors arrayed under a two-dimensional play space mat is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,704,119. A more recent version of this kind of two-dimensional remote control tank battle game in which the controllers can be implemented using a mobile device such as a tablet or smartphone is shown in U.S. Pub. No. 2013/0190090. Additional improvements to remote control model car gaming systems have added sensor and imaging features to enhance the control of a remote control vehicle and maintain parity between real and virtual representations of physical gaming components in a generally two-dimensional game space, as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,353,737, 8,845,385, and 8,882,560.
Other forms of real and virtual generally two-dimensional game space and game play have been developed. One segment of these gaming arrangements has focused on what is referred to as the “Toys to Life” market. Examples of these integrated real and virtual gaming arrangements using a game board and/or objects with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,475,275, 8,753,195, and 8,821,820. Another segment of these real and virtual gaming arrangements has focused on real-world players with virtual games that use the real-world locations of the players, as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 9,033,803 and U.S. Pub. Nos. 2003/0177187, 2007/0190494, and 2008/0146338.
More recently, remote control game play has been expanded to incorporate remotely-controlled aircraft into the game play. In order to support remote control game play in a three-dimensional game space with remotely-controlled aircraft, as well as other vehicles, devices and accessories used as part of game play, more sophisticated control systems are required than those developed for two-dimensional game space and game play arrangements.
The presentation of images associated with real objects and craft from a three-dimensional environment on a player's tablet or smartphone is one challenge facing the development of three-dimensional game play among multiple remotely-controlled aircraft. U.S. Pub. No. 2014/0051513 describes a system for detecting, controlling, and displaying objects using a mobile device, such as a tablet or smartphone. The system uses a camera in the mobile device and tracks the objects in such a way as to display a virtual representation of the object as a different image on a display screen of the mobile device. U.S. Pub. No. 2010/0009735 describes a video game system for a remotely-controlled aircraft in which a craft includes an inertial sensing unit that senses the attitude of the craft and the displayed images on a mobile device is adjusted in response. U.S. Pub. No. 2010/00178966 describes a video game system for a remotely-controlled aircraft in which a mobile device uses video analysis of on-board camera images and flashing LED lights on the craft to determine whether or not there has been a hit in the virtual video game. U.S. Pat. No. 8,818,083 describes a similar system that uses strips of different colors mounted on a remotely controlled drone equipped with forward-facing cameras to identify and confirm whether shots made in virtual game environment are hitting or missing their target. These systems, however, determine orientation, and not distance, relative to the other craft, and not relative to a shared local coordinate system. Challenges remain on how to make the user interface and gaming experience fun and engaging for three-dimensional game play among multiple remotely-controlled aircraft.
Another significant challenge is the problem of locating and tracking with proper resolution the positions and orientations of multiple craft and objects within a three-dimensional gaming space. U.S. Pub. No. 2009/0284553 was one of the first to recognize the need for dynamic position sensing of a remotely-controlled aircraft in a three-dimensional gaming space.
Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) transceivers can track craft and objects outdoors, however, these kinds of GPS solutions may not provide the proper resolution of position and orientation required for three-dimensional gaming among multiple craft and players. In addition, solutions relying on GPS will not work if the three-dimensional gaming space is indoors. Indoor tracking of drones and other flying craft has been accomplished by external motion capture and imaging analysis systems, for example, to continuously track the position of the craft within a predefined indoor space. Generally, this kind of external localization system requires sophisticated equipment with multiple cameras, computer systems and advanced software programs.
Simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) techniques based on on-board video and sensor information are used to allow individual automated craft or robots to acquire an understanding of a surrounding and navigate in response without the need for an external localization system to track and communicate positional information to the craft of robot. While SLAM techniques are particularly useful for autonomous control of swarms of drones or robots, these techniques are generally less relevant to real and virtual gaming environments involving player remote control of a craft.
U.S. Pub. No. 2009/0284553 recognized the need for dynamic position sensing of a remotely-controlled aircraft in a three-dimensional gaming space, and described the use of GPS and an inertial unit and on-board cameras in the craft to determine actual Earth coordinates and a local frame of reference. Together with GPS and dead reckoning based on a starting point of the craft, positional information of the aircraft was determined and then used to download corresponding aerial images to define a game space in which a virtual game may be played. Unfortunately, the techniques presented in this published application for obtaining the positional information information and the appropriate resolution of that information were not well suited for smaller scale or indoor three-dimensional game play, and there was no ability to coordinate the positional information to determine the positions and actions of other remotely-controlled craft within the three-dimensional game space.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,004,973 and 9,011,250 describe a three-dimensional remotely-controlled aircraft gaming system that can selectively assign different players to different teams, and in various embodiments uses two different communication systems, such as infrared (IR) and radio frequency (RF) communications, to implement remote control of the aircraft by the players and coordinate the three-dimensional game play system.
All patents and patent application publications referenced in this entire specification are incorporated herein by reference.
In spite of these advances, there remains a need for improvements to systems and methods that can enhance three-dimensional game play among multiple remote control objects, including multiple remotely-controlled aircraft.